


One Day

by Quillweave



Category: Dark Souls, Dark Souls III
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Comfort/Angst, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillweave/pseuds/Quillweave
Summary: The Firekeeper and the Ashen One come to an agreement, and together at long last find peace. Major DS3 ending spoilers.





	One Day

Enough was enough.

Her armour hit the charred floor in pieces, sending little clouds of soot skyward as she disarmed. Gauntlets, pauldrons, heavy chestplate, mail. Piece by piece dismantling herself as, behind her, the Firekeeper waited.

A helmet, dark-stained with blood and age, rolled away. It had been so long since she’d felt the touch of the air…

Or the touch of another. As she turned to meet the Firekeeper her pale hands rose, gingerly brushing the disfigured sides of her face. A small smile between them, brief and exhausted.

She didn’t ask if she was sure. They both knew.

Cycles could only stretch on for so long. A wick could only be burned down so far. And cinders could only be recycled for so long before even the tiniest flame could not subsist on them.

It was time.

She watched as the Firekeeper knelt, as like a mother cradling a child she held the quivering flame. The Last and the First and the Last again…

Would her sacrifice have been enough to fuel it? Those recalcitrant lords, would their souls have been enough to make that spark shine just a little longer?

It didn’t matter. For all the sacrifices that had been made, they never before had made the right one. Not since Gwyn began to stretch his time, thinner and thinner, more and more fragile in a desperate attempt to keep the flames alive.

“The First Flame quickly fades. Darkness will shortly settle.”

A nod. The Ashen One – no, not any longer. Her armour in pieces gathering soot, she was only herself now. Just another being to be lost in the coming dark. She was her Firekeeper’s ward no longer.

But the Firekeeper smiled, and beckoned with that smile. And so she settled beside her, beneath her, resting her head on her lap as above her the flame shrank and waned.

“But one day, tiny flames will dance across the darkness.”

She timed her breaths with the flickering of it, that tiny spout of glowing warmth. Listening to the Firekeeper’s murmur, letting her eyes drift half-shut. Comforting as it had always been, enough to make the idea of eternal sleep one of peace. Acceptance.

The dark swallowed them like a blanket, muffling, soothing. A chill slowly settled but in the blistering heat of that damned cycle, that mockery of rebirth denying rest – the chill of a dying world was welcome.

But welcome too the warmth of the Firekeeper’s hands, empty now, as they cradled her head. Memories rose, briefly. That kindly smile when she first told her of the path that lay ahead. Those many times she returned battered, exhausted, finding comfort in her voice. Giving her those shriveled, blackened orbs and watching her expression change as she realized what may lay ahead…

The setting of that delicate jaw, the quiet nod as they realized what had to be done for it to happen.

An ending. At long last.

_But one day…_

Not for her. This was an ending, for her, true finality. But one day, sparks would nest and find life. They’d devour and come back strong and hale, setting the world ablaze until another age of dark consumed it all…

One day. Not for her, the traitor. But if this was the reward of betrayal, she would accept it gladly. Her warmth beneath her, the somehow empty-full dark above settling like a shroud above a corpse, the shroud she’d _longed_ for…

All welcomed, like coming home at last. Not to the hearth, but to the grave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“Ashen One, hearest thou my voice, still?”_


End file.
